Your Inevitable Happy Ending
by Sidalee
Summary: Oh, yes, Steve had a plan. He really did. It was a good plan. But for some unknown reason he wasn't following the plan.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing you recognize…

**A/N:** Well, I was so bored at work that I had to write something and this happened.

I like writing Steve stupidly in love with Kono and I also like writing Kono a little more sarcastic and cocky than she is in the show. Hope you don't mind much.

Tell me what you think!

* * *

An eerie silence fell over the crime scene.

Steve was aware of it, distantly. It wasn't… _completely_ unexpected, mostly since in Steve's plan he wasn't going to do this where it seemed he _was_ doing it: in the middle of a very busy, very _nosey_ crime scene full of HPD staff who lived, breathed and found insights through gossip. Oh, yes, Steve had a plan. He really did. He'd worked on it for almost three weeks, hands clammy and cold whenever he thought about it. It was a good plan.

He _wasn't _following the plan_._

Along with the not-completely-unexpected silence surrounding him, Steve was aware that certain words he'd trained himself _not_ to say were falling out of his mouth. These words included 'church' and 'flowers' and 'white dress, whatever you want'. It was like some sort of bizarre possession, an alien with a penchant for cliché taking over and making him say the exact wrong things.

And he couldn't stop. He was _trying_, each new so, so wrong word ringing like a gong inside his head, and if he could just get his damned jaw to stop opening, his tongue to lie still and please, please _stop talking_.

"… so what do you think?" he finally finished, flushed and breathless and wincing.

Dead silence. No one was even _breathing_ while a nail bitten down to the quick tapped a full, slanting mouth. This went on for long enough that Steve realized he was going to have to think of some sort of distraction.

Eventually, Steve said, "Um."

"Are you asking me what I think you're asking me?"

Steve stopped grimacing when he realized there was no accusation in the tone. If anything it was pretty even, which left him trying to _swallow down overwhelming terror_ like acid reflux with a few knives thrown in for kicks. "Yes?"

Sharp, sharp brown eyes, the kind of eyes that never missed anything no matter how often it seemed like they did locked onto his face. "You sound hesitant. I don't like that."

"I—this really isn't how I wanted this to go," he confessed. If he thought it'd win him points, he was ready to tug his collar away from his neck, or scuff his foot, or rub the back of his head, any of the things that had worked in the past. But under _that_ gimlet gaze, training took over and Steve couldn't move at all. "I mean, I wanted it to at least be private."

"But you can't help yourself when you've got something you _really_ want to say. I would have thought the SEAL training would've beat the eager puppy parts of you into submission."

The only possible response to that wasn't one Steve could display in public, so he kept up his mostly-stoic mask and tried not to squirm like a, well, puppy. Who'd been kicked.

He'd been so _careful_. He'd planned it out meticulously, not at all like his normal planning which invariably involved thoughts like _well, that seems like a good way to handle it_. This time there'd been actual _thinking_, with weighing of options, and composing—and recomposing, and _re_composing until Steve was pretty glad computer recycle bins didn't overflow the way physical ones would have—speeches so Steve would say the exact right thing in the exact right way.

His window was narrow enough as it was, and Steve knew it wasn't going to come around twice.

Not for one Kono Kalakaua, dressed in jeans and a bright red shirt that emphasized her curves and the tumble of rich brown strands that always escaped her ponytail, who was watching him with an expression that was so very neutral that Steve started thinking a little hysterically that this might just be a deal-breaker. A real one.

The way nothing else ever really had been, before.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Kono's eyes abruptly narrowed. "You're sweating," she accused. "You're—oh."

Her face was so expressive, each thought and emotion laid out with high definition clarity and Steve could see as the question actually _hit_ her, instead of just her reacting to his performance. Her eyes widened just a little, mouth opening—

And then Steve was looking at the empty space Kono used to occupy.

"Okay," he told to no one in particular. "That went well."

.

.

"She didn't come home," Steve said, miserable. He felt hung over. He wished he _was_ hung-over. "She's never not come home."

"What about the time you finally came home from that super secret SEAL mission?" Danny offered helpfully, watching him with real concern. "She stayed at Chin's for three days, then. Or when you two were fighting. Do not ask me for specific instances, I don't have enough time to list them all."

Okay. That was a good point. Fortunately, Steve had a better one.

"Did you see her at Chin's?" he demanded.

"Ah. No," Danny shook his head. "No, I didn't."

"If she doesn't turn up soon, I'm putting out an APB. I don't care what the Governor says about wasting resources." He wasn't going to cry. He hadn't cried since his mother died when he was in high school, and he _was not_ going to cry.

"You know she will not leave the island," Chin told him as he walked past. "So she will be back. And then you two can talk and fix...things."

Steve let his head thunk against the table. Right. Fix things. Kono was one of the best at taking remnants and shards and slotting them back together again.

But she had to _want_ to.

Steve let the world turn without him for a while and around dinnertime Chin furtively entered his office and politely requested Danny that Steve be transferred to his custody for a while. Steve actually woke up a little at that, angrily demanding that show him what they'd done during the past day.

He purposefully ignored the way they both sighed with relief when he started yelling. He knew he was being managed. He didn't _care_.

Kono wasn't there, wasn't picking up her phone no matter who called, and Steve had done a lot of incredibly stupid things with his life, but he was pretty sure this trumped all of them.

He wasn't sure how to recover from it, either.

Kono… Kono was _his_, his everything. He'd spent years walking around like a living ghost, one who smiled and laughed and looked pretty real, but _wasn't_. He'd been nothing, before her, just another soldier eaten up inside until it rang empty and malleable, smart enough to know how damaged he was, but not invested enough to do anything about it. She'd made him fill all those empty places back up, silencing the echoes and giving him a sense of self he hadn't had since the academy, since all he cared about was pissing off his father and getting back in the water as often as he could.

She made him _want_ things.

And the thing was, the thing that not even Kono believed, he would have loved her anyway. She didn't have to do a damn thing for him, he still would have fallen head over heels in crazy, absolute love. There was nothing about her that wasn't stunning, not her looks, not her vicious, abrasive personality that did little to hide her inability to lie, the way she could never truly protect herself emotionally, no matter how mean she was, no matter how mean she _meant_ it. He loved how brilliant she was, how sometimes no one could keep up with her and she never felt lonely. He loved every single one of her flaws, all the things that made him crazy—_especially_ the ones that made him crazy—because even when they fired off words that should've created mortal wounds, he knew with a certainty that was precious and rare that it was _okay._ That it would never be too much, never be _enough_. They could ride this roller coaster forever, too adrenaline-drunk to feel the bumps, screaming together with every exhilarating plummet, and every time they'd ratchet back up again, creaking and climbing their way to the top, Steve knew it would be with Kono by his side, her hand held tightly in his, matching him breath for breath.

Except he'd done something unforgivable. He'd forgotten he was talking to Kono and instead, had spoken to _Catherine_.

That was the realization that kept him distracted and pitiful as sticky Hawaiian sunlight shaded into cool evening. Steve glanced up at the huge clock near the doorway and winced. Nine. Kono had been gone over twenty four hours.

"Okay," he said, creaking as he forced himself upright. "I'm gonna, I'm gonna go file a missing person's report."

"Ah, yes. Because this is the way to make her see how she is being foolish." Chin wasn't a man to roll his eyes, but he looked like he wanted to. "Sit down. She will be back soon."

Halfway onto his feet, which were numb and didn't want to support him, Steve paused. "Know something I don't?" And if so, why hadn't he mentioned it, oh, say, _yesterday?_

"Many things. Many, many things. I also know that Kono is not the coward you think she is."

His stomach dropped. "I—when have I _ever_ given you the impression I think she's a coward?"

"When you started believing that she would rather run away than fight with you. Sit _down_, Steve." Chin repeated, returning his gaze steadily.

Steve sat.

.

.

An hour later, the door to the office opened and Kono walked through. She looked harried, her hair out of its customary ponytail, wearing the exact same clothes as yesterday, but the expression she wore was about as pensive as someone like Kono could ever look. She looked… nervous, somehow small and seemingly fragile under the huge white garment bag she carried.

A _garment_ bag?

The moment Chin and Danny verified that she was okay they hurriedly left the office.

"Well, at least they're learning," Kono said. "Stay there."

Steve stayed, blinking owlishly as Kono stalked into her office and slammed the door behind her. The window shades rattled as they were pushed into a 'closed' position, leaving him just as alone as moments ago. His skin felt too tight, stomach twisting into knots that tore under the weight of their own pressure. Just because she was back didn't mean it was okay to fold her into his arms, to touch her and make sure she was okay, that she was _real_, smelling of pineapple surf wax and ozone and really, genuinely Kono.

Steve told himself that if he could just do that, then he'd leave. Gracefully.

He was completely lying.

When the door finally opened, Steve spilled out onto his feet. It wasn't precisely flight and it definitely wasn't fight, but he had to be in a kinetic position, able to move whichever way she directed. He was so intent on making certain he was poised for her whims, in fact, that he didn't really look at her until she grumpily cleared her throat.

"A_hem_?"

Steve looked up. Then he said, "Oh."

A dress. Kono wore a dress. It was a sheath, or at least that's what Steve thought it was called, something that followed the contours of her body, highlighting each curve with the kind of loving detail that Steve usually had to use his mouth to achieve. He loved Kono's body, loved how _womanly_ it was despite the clothes picked strictly for comfort and never at all to show off how she looked.

This dress did. It skimmed over her like water, light refracting into dazzling, rainbowed colored points as he looked at her, couldn't _stop_ looking at her. He had to follow the way the dress curved over her breasts, demure despite the strapless cut, exposing the delicate line of her collarbone far more than her cleavage. His eyes tracked downward, the way the bodice narrowed, then flared around her hips, the dress falling straight to pool gracefully at her feet, somehow looking _right_, instead of the inevitable extra yards of fabric that sometimes appeared on dresses.

It was beautiful.

_She_ was stunning.

And the dress was _white._

"I don't know how you can really get a good look at it all the way across the room, like that."

"I'm good, Kono."

"Oh. Well." Her left hand dipped, fingers curling the way they always did when she was confused and not sure how to handle it. "Well?"

He swallowed, voice rough. "It's…You're gorgeous."

"I was talking about the _dress_, McGarrett."

Another sign of stress. Hearing it got Steve to stumble forward until he was close enough to touch, the tips of his boots just edging the fabric draped around her feet. His skin _itched_ to touch her, but it wasn't right, yet, and he stood his ground. "The dress doesn't stop you from being gorgeous, Kono."

"Of course it doesn't, it's just cloth, no matter how artfully put together. But does it make me look better?"

Steve still didn't have her complete romantic history. For a woman who let the world see everything unshielded, she could be secretive when she wanted to. But she wasn't the first incredibly intelligent, driven woman Steve had met before, and combine that with what stories she _had_, and Steve had a picture that did little to reassure him of how she'd been treated before. Steve ached at the tone of her question, wanting nothing more than to erase it with his hands, his mouth.

Not yet.

"You're gorgeous," he repeated, taking a single step forward. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, not in public, and not—not anything like that. I don't even _want_ all those things. I almost had them, once, and they didn't mean anything. This should mean something."

"You're very nearly incoherent right now," she said, face tightening the way it always did when Catherine came up. It wasn't often that Steve talked about his ex-fiancée, but whenever she came up, Kono always got _quiet_ and vicious and almost always ended up baking for him. "Fortunately, I _am_ a genius and I've figured out your bizarre code."

"My code?" He had one. He absolutely had one.

Kono gave an unimpressed sniff, but when she spoke, the words _tumbled_ out of her, so fast that Steve had to concentrate to understand. "It can't be in a church. You know I'm not religious. And unless you really _want_ the next apocalypse to occur before its normal springtime arrival, our families are not invited. Well, except Chin of course. I don't want it to be indoors, I do not want the entire HPD to show up unless we invite them and they have to give us presents, and oh yes, _I_ get to pick the registry. And I want it on the beach, because…you _know,_ and —"

Steve didn't actually get it until she mentioned her cousin, when all the knots inside his stomach released with a surge of adrenaline. He _dived_ forward, cupping her face like it was made of glass, crushing her mouth to his because he knew what those words meant, now, and he knew what he hadn't done before when he'd gone on and on in his moment of sheer insanity.

He hadn't ever _asked_.

"Kono." He was grinning, beaming so hard it was complicated to kiss her. "Will you marry me?"

Her huff was absolutely unsurprising, warm against his mouth. "I just bought a _wedding dress_, you idiot."

"After disappearing for almost a solid day."

"Oh. Perhaps I should've told you yes before I left? But dresses like this one get snatched up faster than you would _believe_, and one of my cousins is getting married and she had magazines out and I just _happened_ to see this dress and the only place it was sold in all of Hawaii and I, uh, I wanted it. So I went to Maui and bought it."

Steve stared at her.

"I only really figured it out after it was in the car," she confessed. "I forgot that I was up for like twenty hours straight, and I, um, started shaking. I stopped so I could eat, and then I fell asleep accidentally and I slept until a few hours ago, which I really, really didn't mean to do. I didn't. I just wanted the dress, and I was so _angry_ that you wanted to have it in a church, because suddenly we're _religious_ without you telling me and...I kind of forgot."

Her phone was probably dead, Steve realized, pressing his forehead to hers. He kissed her again, slower and a little more sultry this time, purposefully sweeping his tongue against the roof of her mouth, hands describing circles on her cheekbones because he _knew_ what that did to her. Maybe it was mean of him, and very probably petty, but he loved the way she melted when he did that, her knees going out without a sound because she knew he'd catch her. Which Steve did, kissing and kissing and kissing her more.

It was Steve's favorite form of punishment, since Kono _hated_ swooning for him. But today, Steve felt he deserved a little swoon and let his hand splay wide over her back, keeping her steady.

When she was moaning softly into his mouth, arms curled around his neck, fingers dragging languidly through his hair, Steve pulled back enough to whisper, "Kono, baby. Marry me."

"Didn't I answer that already?"

Steve was so close that their noses brushed as he shook his head no.

"Oh. We're really bad at this, aren't we?"

"Kono... "

"Yes, yes, of course I will," she said. "Of course."


End file.
